Dehd – Lucky (POST-031)

Love is everyday magic. That's the impression you get listening to Water, the new album by Chicago trio Dehd. Veterans of Chicago's increasingly fruitful DIY scene Jason Balla ( NE-HI, and Earring) Emily Kempf (Vail and formerly with Lala Lala) and drummer Eric McGrady share a strange and inexplicable chemistry. Love rises up into the atmosphere like steam off a summer sidewalk and makes you wild. Love breaks your heart and you consider yourself lucky for it. Like water itself, it surrounds us, it supports us; it's what we're made of. It takes the shape of its container. The music is hazy and reverb-drenched, a scuzzy and hyped-up take on surf rock that could only come from the Third Coast. It's all animated by the red-lining feel-good spirit of the Velvet Underground's Loaded and the breezy melodicism of C86-era indie rock, with a dash of the Cramps' spooky-hop bop courtesy of McGrady's locomotive drumming.It's a clear-eyed look at the wild nature of everyday life that's been spun up in sugary sweet melodies and scratched-crystal sounds. More than anything, it's the embodiment of Dehd's m.o. from the start: As Kempf puts it, "Work with what you have and make it magical."